Thumbs-down on boutique restaurants

Fantabulous book critic John Marshall called a new major-market coffee table book, Boutique Restaurants, to my attention today. It wasn’t because of the abominable copy editing in the $45 book (photography spelled as “photoghaphy,” comet spelled as “cimet,” saying compliment when the writer meant complement, fuchsia spelled as “fushia,” inserting a period in the middle of one sentence and leaving it out at the end of another sentence, referring to Momofuku Noodle Bar’s David Chang as “davio change,” forgetting to capitalize the “i” in Italian, and on and on and on). No, Marshall was just politely noting that four of the restaurants featured in the book are Seattle spots — and two of them are already out of business.

The book, meant to showcase 34 of “the most creative smaller-scale restaurant designs in the world,” includes Veil (defunct), Qube (ditto), Top Pot, and La Spiga, listing them along with big-name places such as L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon. That’s 34 restaurants according to the book jacket, by the way, but only 33 according to the table of contents and 32 if you go by the directory in the back of the book. (Is it possible this is an advance reader copy and an extraordinarily unedited one at that? I keep thinking it’s got to be, but it’s a big glossy hardcover that isn’t marked in any place I can find as being not ready for prime time.)

Marshall wondered if the two restaurant closures were a sign of the faltering economy. Possible — or perhaps we just weren’t the right place for those two particular jewels of design. In the book’s look at “warm, clean, and sensual” Veil, for instance, the Veil bathrooms got special attention for “a floor-to-ceiling glass translucent glass wall adding a voyeuristic element to the mix.” Did anyone ever think a large contingent of Seattle diners would appreciate a voyeuristic element to their toilets?